I tried to resist writing this—especially after my plea against categorizing authors.  Plus, so many of us hide our age in this world of never-get-old, unearthing this information, even in our Googlized world, was difficult.

But, recently, along with the plethora of lists of writers under 40, I was faced with the declaration that, as headlined in a Guardian UK article about writers, ‘Let’s Face It, After 40 You’re Past It.”

Then I read Sam Tanenhaus opine in the New York Times that there was “an essential truth about fiction writers: They often compose their best and most lasting work when they are young. “There’s something very misleading about the literary culture that looks at writers in their 30s and calls them ‘budding’ or ‘promising,’ when in fact they’re peaking.”

Thus, in the interest not of division, but of keeping up the flagging spirits of those who don’t want to be pushed out on the ice floe until after publishing all those words jangling in their head, I present 40 0ver 40:

Paul Harding, author of Tinkers, won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize with his debut novel, published when he was 42. Robin Black, author of If I Loved You I Would Tell you this, was 48 when she debuted this year. Holly LeCraw published her debut novel The Swimming Pool at 43. Julia Glass was in her early 40s when she published Three Junes. Charles Bukowski’s first novel, Post Office, was published at 49.  James Michner’s first book, Tales of the South Pacific was published when he was forty—he went on to publish over 40 titles. Sherwood Anderson, author of Winesburg, Ohio published his first novel at the age of 40. Amy Mackinnon debuted Tethered in her 4o’s.

Henry Miller’s first published book, Tropic of Capricorn, was released when he was over forty. Tillie Olsen published Tell Me A Riddle just shy of 50. Edward P Jones was 41 when his first book Lost In The City came out. Claire Cook published her first novel at age 45. Chris Abouzied published his first novel Anatopsis at 46. Kyle Ladd was 41 when her debut, After The Fall, was published.

Lynne Griffin published her first novel, Life Without Summer at 49. Elizabeth Strout’s first novel Amy & Isabel debuted when she was 42.  MJ Rose first novel came out when she was in her mid forties. Melanie Benjamin was 42 when she debuted. Therese Fowler was forty exactly when Souvenir debuted.

Margaret Walker wrote Jubilee, her only novel at 51. Raymond Chandler debuted at 51 with The Big Sleep. Belva Plain published her first novel, Evergreen, at 50. Alex Haley published his debut novel Roots when he was 55. (His first book, the nonfiction The Autobiography of Malcolm X was published when he was in his mid-forties.) Jon Clinch debuted with Finn at age 52. In 2010 his wife Wendy Clinch published Double Black.

Also in 2010 Iris Gomez published Try To Remember in her fifties, as did Joseph Wallace with Diamond Ruby, and I published The Murderer’s Daughters at 57. Sue Monk Kidd was 54 when she debuted The Secret Life of Bees. Annie Proulx’s first novel, Postcards, was published when she was 57. Jeanne Ray published debut, Julie and Romeo in her fifties.

George Elliot’s first novel, Adam Bede, debuted when Elliot turned 50.  Isak Dineson’s first, Seven Gothic Tales came out when she turned 50.  Hallie Ephron author of Never Tell A Lie began publishing fiction after fifty. Jackie Mitchard was past 50 when The Deep End of the Ocean debuted. Richard Adams debuted with Watership Down at 52.

Laura Ingalls Wilder published her first novel (beginning the Little House series) at 65. Harriet Doerr won the National Book Award, for Stones for Ibarra, written when she was 74. Katherine Anne Porter published her only novel, Ship of Fools, at age 72. EJ Knapp just debuted Stealing The Marbles, saying “I’m so far past forty I can’t remember it anymore.” Norman McLean wrote A River Runs Through It at age 74.

When compiling this list, Ellen Meeropol asked: “Do I count? My first novel, House Arrest, will come out in February, two months before my 65th birthday.” Karen LaFreya Simpson will be 55 when her first novel Act of Grace debuts next year and Nichole Bernier will be over 44 when The Unfinished Live of Elizabeth D is published in 2012. Yes, that’s my answer, Ellen. We all count.

This is only a list of first novels. Compiling lists of bestselling, Pulitzer Prize winning, Orange Prize winning, etc. books written after the age of 40—that will take several essays.

About when I turned ten I began crafting my library checkouts, hoping I’d look smart. I’d balance my Nancy Drew with a biography of Abraham Lincoln so the librarian thought well of me. (It seems my self-esteem problem enacted early.)

Jodi Picoult, following the NYT doubled coverage of Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom, recently weighed in on the Times overwhelming coverage of white male authors. Men telling domestic stories are writing art, while women covering similar ground are crafting women’s fiction. Jennifer Weiner agreed and twitterized the issue with the hashtag #franzenfreude.

Weiner’s directness started a new frenzy, and the issue veered from Picoult’s premise to the age-old battle of literary fiction being weighed against (more…)

Back in the days of the crazy housing boom in Boston, when prices went insane, jumping by hundreds of thousands in a few short years, the Mission Hill triple-decker where I rented an apartment for my daughters and myself was sold to a gonna-get-rich-condo guy who quadrupled our rent to an impossible sum.

We moved to farthest reaches of our beloved neighborhood, so far only our zip code kept us there. I was better off not looking in the corners of that scabby apartment. One closet I barely opened, terrified of the ancient unmovable dirt hosting God knows what. Moreover, this apartment wasn’t even secure; an absentee landlord bided his time waiting for the right price.

I lived on the precipice of hating the place and being terrified that that I’d lose it.

Then a housing lottery rescued me. Now I could buy a home where no one could throw me out. Not rent. Buy! Affordably buy a beautiful brand-new townhouse. It was part of a mixed-income, owner-occupied, townhouse community being built in Mission Hill. The homes were engendered by the hard work of (and I know I’ll forget someone precious, so forgive me) the Bricklayers Union, led by Thomas J. McIntyre, Governor Dukakis, Mayor Ray Flynn, Mission Hill activists (always the best!) the instrumental and always wonderful State Representative Kevin Fitzgerald (rest in peace, Kevin,) and Senator Ted Kennedy.

When the time came to celebrate publicly, a team of politicians and their staff came to my house for a press conference. I cleaned, put out food, and worried that my shiny new carpet would get dirty as everyone clomped through my home. Most of the politicians and their aides were friendly. Some I already knew. However, in the midst of political men who turned their faces to the camera like flowers to the sun, a few truly noticed that I was more than a single mother who’d been given a leg up and took me out of the role of stereotype. Kindness spilled from Governor Dukakis. Kevin Fitz was, as always, a supportive and loving man.

Senator Ted Kennedy behaved like an absolute favorite uncle in the world. He leaned against the windowsill, ate the fruit and cookies I’d put out, and asked about my life. Where did my children go to school? What sort of work did I do? How did I like the neighborhood? How was I doing? He spoke to me as though he had all the time in the world—not ever looking for the cameras roaming the house.

Senator Kennedy helped me get a house, a home.

Now another young woman and her children live there. I hope they feels the presence of the Senator—larger than life, yes, but also life-size. Able not only to help build homes—but to become a neighbor.

Rest in peace, Senator.

Writers talk much and write much (including me) about the difficulty of finding that perfect first line. Sometimes I want to create entire books because a great first line popped into my head. Tougher, can be that last line. Tougher because it’s culminating an entire world.

The last line is a writer’s goodbye to her characters and her readers. It must wrap up all a writer’s thoughts, without staying too long at the party, and it must leave the reader with a lingering taste of the characters—enough to let the reader feel that the men, women, and children with whom they’ve just spent hours, will continue on their journey.

And we want to believe that. When we love a book, we need to think that we may someday meet the characters again.

Last lines should have impact—but not shout. Are any of these below familiar (more…)

Book promotion  is hard: how does one move from furrowed brow-sweat pants-butt-in-chair to gracious and engaging?

Writing a book takes a certain set of skills: intense concentration, imagination, the ability to read the same 400 + pages time after time, and the fortitude to take criticism (excuse me, ahem, critique) without weeping.  You must learn to shut out all noise at a given moment and you must love (more…)

“At work, you think of the children you have left at home. At home, you think of the work you’ve left unfinished. Such a struggle is unleashed within yourself. Your heart is rent.” – Golda Meir

I suspect that it’s easier to find authentic novels about the difficulty of being a daughter or son than down-and-dirty tales about being a mother.  Great books about being the child of bad parents, evil parents, and crazy parents abound. Rarer are books about the authentic experience of being a mother that don’t explain away negative thoughts moments after putting them on paper. er

I understand this. We writer/mothers fear judgement. What in this world is less revered than a bad mother (and thus the shelves of novels and memoirs devoted to recovering from them.) But how soothing it can be to learn that one is not alone in experiencing the ambivalence of mothering—and that feeling does not mean doing. Inside thoughts that pop up even as one murmurs soothing words to a screeching

(more…)

Does violence at home have a throbbing beat for a backdrop and erotic sex burning up the house? Eminem might think he’s presenting a case against domestic violence, but with lines like these:

“Just gonna stand there and watch me burn

But that’s alright because I like the way it hurts”

pouring from co-star Rihanna’s beautiful lips as her liquid kohl-rimmed eyes show us how caught in erotic fascination she is, we see one long rationalization about how two people caught up in alcohol and sex flame out to a passion-soaked burn.

That’s the song your kids will be humming and dancing to while they watch a glamour-drama of domestic abuse amidst love gone wrong.

After watching Eminem’s “Love The Way You Lie” video, I wonder if it’s meant to warn women from bad boys, or if the message tells us to be more understanding girlfriends, and thus rescue our tortured battering boyfriends. Certainly Eminem shows himself as an alarmingly appealing, if dangerous, (more…)

“But it really happened.”

I was in an adult-ed writer’s group when I first heard this. I’d watched the woman speaking become tenser and grimmer as members of the group—gently and with compassion—suggested that the gruesome events on the page could be presented in a manner more conducive to engaging the reader.

She listened for only a few moments—sadly, this group did not have a ‘be silent while being critiqued’ policy—before unleashing, accusing the group of everything from indifference about sexual assault on children, to ignorance about how children really thought (this in response to our collective idea that 4-year-olds did not speak like 30-year-olds.) She shook as she lectured us on the horror of incest.

True that. Everything she said about her pain and suffering was true—but it still didn’t work on the page. My social services hat went on and I reacted to (more…)

By Chris Abouzied

A friend of mine recently said she hoped readers would view her latest novel as literary, not “plotty.”  By that, I think she meant she hoped no one would discount the artistry in her work just because it served up a sexy story.

Hearing plot being pitted against artistry always rubs me the wrong way, but I had to admit she had a point.  No one was going to say, “The son sleeps with his dead father’s mistress?!  A literary star is born!”  Plot, for whatever reason, seems to be on a par with skeletons in the physiology of literature— (more…)

I read a post on author Tayari Jones’ blog earlier this month, that hasn’t left my mind. She asks why books by black writers aren’t considered universal, starting her post with these words:

“In the last few years, black writers have been speaking out about double standards in the world of publishing. Among these are Martha Southgate’s NYT essay, “Writers Like Me” and more recently, Bernice’s MacFadden’s Black Writers in A Ghetto of the Publishing Industry’s Making. In these articles, both writers (who also are novelists) put into a public conversation the issues that black writers have been complaining about for years– like why is that stories about black folks that are written by white folks get so much traction. (The Help, The Secret Lives of Bees, Little Bee, etc.) How come books about us by us are not thought to be “universal”? Why are black faces on the cover of a book thought to be so alienating? At this point in the gripe session, I break out my favorite oh-no-he-didn’t moment– when someone asked me what percentage of my work is “black” and what percentage is “human.””

It’s not only a great post, it’s an important question for all readers and writers. For readers: you/we are missing a vast store of great books by staying within one’s cultural boundaries. We’re missing great reads, and as (more…)